ouse of Messer Francesco Montevarchi, a friend of these arts, but
came to an evil end in the inundation of the River Arno in the year
1558. He also made a boy of tow and a swan as beautiful as could be,
of marble, for the same M. Giovanni Gaddi, together with many other
things, which are all in his house. For Messer Bindo Altoviti he had a
chimney-piece of great cost made, all in grey-stone carved by
Benedetto da Rovezzano, which was placed in his house in Florence, and
Messer Bindo caused Sansovino to make a scene with little figures for
placing in the frieze of that chimney-piece, with Vulcan and other
Gods, which was a very rare work; but much more beautiful are two boys
of marble that were above the crown of the chimney-piece, holding some
arms of the Altoviti in their hands, which have been removed by
Signor Don Luigi di Toledo, who inhabits the house of the above-named
Messer Bindo, and placed about a fountain in his garden, behind the
Servite Friars, in Florence. Two other boys of extraordinary beauty,
also of marble and by the same hand, who are likewise holding an
escutcheon, are in the house of Giovan Francesco Ridolfi. All these
works caused Sansovino to be held by the men of art and by all
Florence to be a most excellent and gracious master; on which account
Giovanni Bartolini, having caused a house to be built in his garden of
Gualfonda, desired that Sansovino should make for him a young Bacchus
in marble, of the size of life. Whereupon the model for this was made
by Sansovino, and it pleased Giovanni so much, that he had him
supplied with the marble, and Jacopo began it with such eagerness,
that his hands and brain flew as he worked. This work, I say, he
studied in such a manner, in order to make it perfect, that he set
himself to portray from the life, although it was winter, an assistant
of his called Pippo del Fabbro, making him stand naked a good part of
the day. Which Pippo would have become a capable craftsman, for he was
striving with every effort to imitate his master; but, whether it was
the standing naked with the head uncovered at that season, or that he
studied too much and suffered hardships, before the Bacchus was
finished he went mad, copying the attitudes of that figure. And this
he showed one day that it was raining in torrents, when, Sansovino
calling out "Pippo!" and he not answering, the master afterwards saw
him mounted on the summit of a chimney on the roof, wholly naked and
striking t